Pirates off Istanbul?

[marienbad]

A friend was in Venice recently and met a couple who were sailing on a Celebrity or Rpyal Caribbean ship. The couple told her that when they were in Istanbul, they heard loud noises around the ship, and were told by the crew that there were pirates who had tried to board the ship. I have no reason to doubt our friend, but I wonder if there is any truth to this.

[dbali]

How long ago was this? I have been watching the webcams and lately the ships have been going to Turkey.

[woodofpine]

Maybe not...

 

The Bosporus is very very heavily traffiked (actually it is high collision risk area) and Turkey is heavily policed so I'd really doubt piracy would be anything but an extreme rarity. It is not an area that maritime insurers consider prone to piracy. The Caribbean has greater numbers of incidents and IT'S not a high piracy area...

 

But 'piracy' is defined as any robbery or burglary of a vessel so in an large urban area its possible...

[marienbad]

I think there was a piracy incident in Istanbul. It apparently involed a Royal Caribbean ship; perhaps the Brilliance. Another friend was on the Millenium in Santorini, and heard that another Royal Caribbean ship had been diverted to Santorini because of the incident. Apparently pirates had used rockets against the cruise ship, but were repelled.

I will post this on Royal Caribbean as well to see if anyone knows about this.

[m steve]

Sandra Bullock or Bruce Willis on board. You are sure to have a bad incident.

[4 cruisers]

When we were in Istanbul in June, I was in my cabin at around 11 o'clock and heard snapping and popping. Looked out the window and a lovely fireworks show was going on over the Bosporus! I wonder if a crewmember was just "having fun" with the passengers:rolleyes: .

 

The only pirate incident I can think of is the Silver Sea(I believe that was the line) one involving missles off Africa.

[pinebro]

We Were On The Millie When The Brilliance Joined Us In Santorini. The Passengers We Talked To Were Told That Due To A Terrorist Threat In Turkey, They Were Diverted.

Can You Imagine Tiny Santorini With The Huge Millie And The BRILLIANCE, As Well As Seven Seas And Windstar And One Other Ship In Port !! Wall To Wall !!

[4 cruisers]

OMG Pinebro! We can totally relate! We were with a huge Costa ship and somehow ended up with what seemed like the whole ship waiting in line to take the funicular back down to the ships! It was like 90 degrees and we stood in line for almost 2 hours!!!! Santorini is such a beautiful "LITTLE" island but we aren't so anxious to cruise there again because of the crowds!